-Taylors pov-
Ellie is 20 weeks, or five months if you want to say it like that, today. For the last two weeks we have tried to sleep train her which has been a nightmare, but it's paid off. At one point I had to spend a night in another room because her crying made me cry and that made Ellie even more upset, thankfully joe has been really good on that front.
The first several times she would cry a lot and need soothing a lot, but we did everything we could to not pick her up at all. The only times we picked her up was for the two feedings she gets during the night, we have timed it so that she gets one as joe and I go to bed, I think they call it dream feeding, and then one more around 3-4am depending on when we went to bed and if she wants one. Now we are trying to cut down to one feeding though. Eventually, probably by her 6month cheek up we will ask the doctor if it's alright to wean her completely off night feeds. Apparently it's safe to do that around this time.
Now she has thankfully caught onto the sleeping arrangements, clearly consistency has worked for her. There have been several times where I've wanted to cave when she was crying, but we stuck with it, and it paid off. We have also completely gotten her to sleep in the crib now, so the basinets are gone. It was about time because she was getting too big for them, and she is rolling over from her tummy to her back all the time and wiggle a lot if she doesn't want to sleep. I don't know how much lover it would have been safe for her in the basinet, but now she is safely transitioned to the crib.
When it comes to introducing food, we have decided to wait until this week. Originally, we wanted to start right away but we figured it would be too many things at once and would just be too much on all of us.
Joe is mixing some baby cereal with some breastmilk while I get Ellie ready in her highchair. She thankfully loves sitting in it now because she can see so much better what's going on around her. I put on her bib and sit down next to her.
Holding my hands in front of my face I pull them away "peekaboo" I say playfully, and she has started to say "boo" back which is adorable and then she laughs. There is nothing about her that I don't like. She is just the cutest tiny human in the world, I'm absolutely obsessed with everything about her. Now her little personality is slowly shining through more and I'm so excited to get to know everything there is to know about her.
Joe comes over and hand me her food and I get ready to feed her. It's not about eating for nutrition at this point, it's more of just practicing eating at all. We have only done this yesterday and today so it's fairly new at this point. Yesterday I don't know if she swallowed much, it mostly got in her mouth and then ended up sliding down her face and making a mess everywhere, but we got some in her mouth at least.
"Can you do like mommy; can you open up" I say and dramatically open my mouth which causes her to do so slightly too. She obviously hasn't caught onto the whole eating concept, that takes time. I get some into her little mouth and she is trying to figure out what to do with it which is funny to look at. "Swallow my little munchkin" I say.
It takes us about 10 minutes before she is bored and turn away so that means it's time to let it go for now, we will try again in the evening. "Ok my little Ellie, let's get you cleaned up and we will play some" I say and get some wet wipes to clean her up. Thankfully the bib caught most of it but she is dirty under her chin slightly. She is still so little that she doesn't feed herself yet, so thankfully it's not as messy as it will be one day.
"You know my little Ellie. Aunty Blake was telling me about how betty, your future best friend, is now feeding herself and yesterday they found food all down her back, and no one knows how it got there. That will be you too sooner than later" I say and pick her up from the highchair.
Joe is off somewhere doing work or something. Things haven't been too good between us recently and I don't know what to do about it. It's not like we had a fight, we haven't fought since the whole picture in the hospital situation. But it's just that we don't have time for one another these days and it's taking a toll on our relationship. With quarantine still being a thing one of us always are with Ellie up until bedtime, but when she sleeps, we are either too tired to talk or we have work to do. There just isn't enough time in the day for us to spend some much-needed quality time together.
I take Ellie with me over to the playroom and set her down with pillows around her and help her sit up. We are currently working on sitting on her own and she can now with a little support, and we still keep some pillows around just in case she falls.
"You know my little munchkin. In not that long we are going to try without mommy's boobies at night. What do you think about that? Do you think you're ready to not eat during the night? I think you're getting there for sure. and we are almost at the time where it's appropriate to have you in your nursery, wont that be fun?" I keep talking to her while gently having a hand on her back to help her sit and having her hold a toy that she is really loving at the moment. she is really loving the skip hop bandana buddies animal activity toy now. Its soft so it's easy to hold but it has different textures different places so its lots of different things to explore.
"When you go down for a nap Ellie mommy is going to order you some new stuff doesn't that sound fun. It's time to get you some toys for 5month olds. And you're growing out of some of your clothes, so you need some new onesies too" I tell her as a matter of fact, but she just smiles at me without actually knowing what I'm saying.
We have learned that she just loves to hear us talk about all and everything. It's also apparently good for their development to hear us talk a lot, so I don't mind. Especially now that joe and I haven't been too close I can at least talk with Ellie. With the pandemic still being a problem, we haven't had people over in a really long time, so I think that's making matters worse too. Thankfully it seems like its slowly getting better now, at least here in Nashville. I'm thinking of talking with my mom if she could watch Ellie for a bit so joe and I could get some time alone, I think we really need it right now.
"Do you think I should call grandma my little munchkin? I think so" I say and grab my phone and call her but putting her on speaker so I could focus on Ellie and not holding my phone.
"Hi mom, how are you?" I say when she picks up. "Hi honey, I'm good. how are you?"
"Right now, Ellie and I are playing with that toy you sent us on the floor. We just had some food which was nice wasn't it, Ellie?" I coo her and my mom laughs. "it's so much fun when they can start to eat stuff"
"Yeah. Mom, I wanted to ask you something. I don't know if you feel comfortable not being home yet, with everything going on I totally get that. But if you're alright with it I would love it if you could watch Ellie for a bit maybe tomorrow, joe and I... we need some time together I think... things are not going to good right now" I say and take a deep breath. I really miss feeling the sense of closeness with joe, he is my best friend so when we don't even talk about other things than Ellie its lonely in this big house.
"of course I would love to watch her. You and joe deserve some alone time after five months of constantly watching her. It's no wonder that things are hard now, I feel completely comfortable. Besides, I know Ellie is dying for some time with grandma" she says, and I smile, I really love my mom.
"Thank you. Do you want to come here, or should I drop her of at your house?" I ask.
"Maybe I should come there. Since she got all her stuff and such there and knows the place it's probably best" she says, and I agree. "Sure, let me just talk to joe and I will call you back later"
We agree and hang up before I go back to playing with Ellie. "You know, your grandma is pretty wonderful. I love her so much and I know you will love her too my little Ellie"
Eventually Ellie gets bored of playing so I pick her up and go to find joe who is reading lines in the office. "Hi babe" I say and come into the room. "hi" he says and look up from his papers. "what's up?"
"Well, talked with mom for a bit. And I asked her if she would mind watching Ellie for some time tomorrow, because I think we need... well I need at least... some time just the two of us" I say and bite my lip. I don't know what he thinks about this, we haven't talked about it so maybe I shouldn't have made plans without him.
He looks at me for a second before saying anything "you sure that will be okay? If your mom is okay with it sure. I miss you too Taylor" he says, and I sniffle, he gets where I'm coming from without me even having to say anything. "I love you" I say and lean over to kiss him then Ellie starts to scratch me "oh you want a kiss too Ellie" I say and give her a kiss before nuzzling my nose against hers.
**
My mom comes over and relive joe and I for a bit, so we get in the car alone for the first time together since she was born. "it's so weird to not have her with us" I say and take joes hand that's resting on the consol. "it is, but it's nice for us to get some time together too. What do you want to do?" he asks and lift our hands to his lips and kiss my knuckles.
"How about we get some drinks and go for a walk in our place. It's nice to get outside for a while" I suggest, and he agrees so we drive to Starbucks to get some stuff in the drive through. "I want a decaf white chocolate mocha" I tell him, and he orders that and a regular latte for himself. I hope I can start drinking caffeine myself soon, I should probably ask about that on the 6months visit.
We get out drinks and sing along to the songs on the radio on our way to our secret little park. "We haven't been here since we got engaged" I say as we intertwine our fingers after getting out of the car. With one hand we hold each other and the other holds our hot drinks.
"It feels like it was yesterday, time has moved so fast after Ellie was born" joe says, and we look around us at the forest that's covered in light snow.
I really love snow, it makes everything lighter even when we are in a darker part of the year where the days are shorter. In a couple of days, it's the first spring month and I'm excited for that. It will be easier to take Ellie outside when its warmer, and she will also get bigger so we can actually go outside and play.
"I wish we could take Ellie on walks like this" I say and take in the scenery. There are no other people in sight except us and two security guards.
"We can take her. It's always a risk though but we can take her. We need to find a balance where she gets to do stuff kids get to do, while we also shield her as much as we can from the tabloids" he says, and I agree with that.
I don't want her to grow up as Rapunzel locked inside because we are scared to let her into the world. At some point we just need to let her out because I don't think we will ever feel like we are ready for it.
"it's really hard. It's easier for you to take her out, and of course I want you two to have that time, but it's hard for me. I don't get to do that in the same way you get to. Whenever I leave the house it's a big ordeal with tons of security and the risk of being taken pictures off or attacked by stalkers" it's something I think about a lot. That there are so many things she will probably only get to do if I'm not there. My job takes away experiences I'm supposed to be a part of.
"We will figure that out Taylor. Of course you're going to do normal things with her. We just need to be prepared for what it can turn into. But don't let that take away the little moments in our everyday life. Now people know about her so maybe it's time to take her for a walk or something. She can be in her stroller so no one can see her face, it could be a first step."
Joe has always had a level head that I don't have. In that way we have different strengths, in most ways I'm a slightly pessimistic person while he is an optimist. Together we are a perfect balance because I make him aware of everything that could go wrong while he sees more solutions than I do.
It's funny because when I was younger, I was annoyed by my mom's "worst case Andrea" situation. But now that I'm a mom I get where she is coming from. I see every danger there is for my daughter around every corner because I don't want her to get hurt physically or emotionally. My mom took it far though when I was a kid, she once told me to not blow my nose because it could lead to a brain infection, which isn't true. Now we can laugh about all of those things, but I never understood the worries before Ellie was conserved. Before her I was only responsible for myself, but now I need to make sure she is safe too.
"Are you ready to leave for filming? For Irland?" I ask as we walk. "Yeah, it will be fun. It's a really interesting storyline and I love the book and the other show normal people so I think it will be interesting. It's also really interesting that the cast is so small, it's just the four of us and then a couple of times there are someone else too, but mostly it's just us" he says. He really loves what he does, love his craft. Its exiting for me to see that he is evolving as an actor and getting more parts quicker than before. He loves acting the way I love music.
"i'm excited for Irland too. It will be the first time Ellie leaves the country though" I say. We decided that Ellie and I would go with him there so he wouldn't be away from us for too long. I will have to leave some though, go to London for the brits and then to nashville in june for some recording, but for the most part we are staying in Belfast with joe. Ellie will be going with me when I have to go somewhere else because of joes call times and because I'm still her main source of food.
"i'm also exited for your family to meet Ellie, it's about time" joe sadly won't be there when they meet because he is in Irland, but I will take Ellie to meet his family when I'm in London. They even offered to watch her while I am at the brit awards which I appreciate a lot. Liz is really excited to be a grandmother again. Joes brother tom already has a son, Ivan who is 4 years old, but Ellie is her first granddaughter. "true, they're so excited to meet her. It makes me sad that they haven't been able to before now, but I guess that's just how it is these days"
The pandemic has made things different for everyone, noting is like they used to be these days. It's sad that it happened right around the time we got pregnant so we couldn't do all the things we wanted to do if we ever got pregnant, but sometimes the universe has a different path for you. Just because things don't go the way you wished doesn't mean it has to be bad. To keep yourself from spiraling into all the things that's wrong you need to look for the moments that are still special. Things didn't go to the ideal plan that most new parents wish for, but that doesn't mean that this time hasn't been special in its own way.
"Tom promised to film when Ellie meets your family, so if nothing else you get to see it that way, I guess. Sometimes things don't go the way we wish for, but it can still be special if you find something to hold on to" I say and take a sip of my drink.
"How do you feel about the plot for the series. We haven't talked that much about it other than that you said it was okay that I took the job. I know that you say I don't need your permission but I didn't want to take something like this without us being on the same page" he says, and I know he is nervous about that.
Conversations with friends is a weird love story where the guy joe is playing is in an open relationship with his wife and then he starts to sleep with this other girl. The producers are the same that directed normal people so we know that it will be steamy and realistic. I'm not going to say that its comfortable that I know what's going to play out on the screen, but I know it's not real. Its acting, and that's something I signed up for when I decided that I wanted to date joe.
"I mean. Am I exited for your sex scenes with someone else? No... But it's fine joe, I know it's not real. It's also not your choice how they want to film it, so there is nothing for me to be upset about. Do I think it will be uncomfortable? Yeah, but really its fine" I tell him honestly. "Besides. I know that no one can touch you like I do" I say and quote my own lyrics which causes us both to laugh.
"it's true though. There is no one that makes me feel like you do Taylor, no one" he says and stop walking so he can lean over and gently kiss me. "Good, because I'm competitive" I say and smirk at him, so he throws his head back laughing. "I don't I know that. You're probably the most competitive person I know"
We enjoy each other's company for two hours before its time to go home to Ellie and let my mom go back home. Thankfully they had played for most of that time so now I could just feed her and put her down for a nap. We decided that we wanted to be back home again in time to feed her as she prefers the boob over the bottle. It's still the same milk, I pump so we have milk in the fridge too, but she prefers the boob. It's probably because that way she gets some skin on skin contact too. I don't mind though because it's not that long before she will start to eat more actual food too.
Eventually it's time for bed and we have gotten good at that now thankfully. We have a strict routine that starts at 6:30 pm. We dim the lights in the house and all three of us go upstairs to the bedroom. We give her a warm bath where we only speak in soft voices. Then she gets rubbed with some lotion and put in her sleep suit. I feed her and then one of us leaves the room while the other one reads her a book. We make sure to lay her down in her crib before she actually falls asleep as we are training her to fall asleep on her own. Being able to self sooth is an important milestone for babies, and apparently if you start too late with that its harder than getting into that routine early on.
She gets one feed during the night now if she wants one but that's the only time, we pick her up. We have been following the guidelines for the f we pick her up. We have been following the guidelines for the Ferber method because to us that made the most sense. It's not too harsh and not too wrapping her in bobble wrap either. Apparently choosing a method is also about how much the parents can handle, because hearing her cry and not going to sooth her is hard on the parents too.
** 23 weeks old (around February 18th **
The last several days we have had a lot of sleep regression with Ellie, which has been hard on all three of us. She has been practicing rolling from her back to her stomach at all times during the day so she would rather do that than sleep. It's also fun to talk and laugh so it's been a challenge for all of us. It's hard for joe and I to stay asleep when she is still in our room having a party during the night. But thankfully we are going to her 6month checkup next week so hopefully we will get the green light to move her to her own room. I think she has been ready for a little bit now, but we haven't wanted to just do it. It's one of the struggles of being a new parent, not wanting to do stuff even when our instincts tell us its fine.
Today we have decided to take her out in her stroller for the first time which I'm really nervous about, but we have decided to do it in our little secret park because the only people we really meet there are old people who have no idea who I am, or old people that have known me for years.
We get there and I slip her into the sleeping bag as its cold after all. She is wearing wool clothing too to make sure she stays warm and cozy. It was hard to figure out what we were supposed to dress her in, so we called Blake who has been a really good help. I've also gotten advice from my friend Claire that lives here too. Claire had a baby years ago, her first born in like 2018, tina, but then she had another baby about a year ago, so he, Jonas, is the same age as Ellie just born earlier in the year like betty.
It's nice that I have a good group of friends here in Nashville that all have kids. Claire, Abigail and lily all have kids. Lilys oldest, dixie who is 8, have always loved to hang out with me and joe, she always asks to come over. Lily also has a son that's 2 years old.
Joe pushes Ellies Stoller while I hold onto his arm and point out things to Ellie who seems exited to see something other than the inside of our house, the car or the doctor's office. I feel bad that she is 6 months but never been out in her stroller because I'm a nervous wreck.
"You know my little munchkin, one day when you're getting bigger and its summer we will go here and have fun in the water. Daddy and I have done that several times and that's really fun. I promise there aren't any sea urchins here so it's safe" I hate those little things; I always have and always will. They're dangerous little monsters.
Ellie seems occupied while she looks around from her safety of her Stoller but then she looks up at me "ba ba ba ba" she babbles and shake her head "you are so adorable aren't you my little Ellie." I coo her and tickle her chin which makes her laugh.
It's so nice to spend some time just the three of us outside of the house, security is sadly with us but that's just how it is. Joe and I have talked a lot about what we want to do when Ellie is out with joe, if we want security with them. Joe never takes security when it's just him somewhere, but we decided that if he takes Ellie there needs to be security there. He usually doesn't get recognized, but with her we are not taking any risks.
The next several months will be hectic, but that's just how things are with our careers. The biggest difference is now we need to juggle being parents at the same time.
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No idea if tom actually has a kid, I just made that up so Ellie will have a cousin. And the names of Claire's kid I don't know so I made that up too. I should probably start to write down all these names so I don't forget.
Oh and I know that betty was born in October 2019, but I decided that I wanted her to be the same age as Ellie.
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